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The tunnel boring machines that will carve out the Crosstown LRT are about to rumble through the earth under Eglinton Ave. W.

And that means the deserted Kodak lands in Weston-Mount Dennis will spring to life in the next couple of years.

A Kodak building lies abandoned in the Weston-Mount Dennis area of Toronto. The Eglinton Crosstown is expected to breathe new life into the community. (Aaron Harris / For the Toronto Star)

The massive 23-hectare industrial “brownfield,” empty since the film manufacturer closed in 2005, will get a second chance when it’s redeveloped as the maintenance and storage facility for vehicles on the new LRT line.

Infrastructure Ontario — the provincial agency tendering the contracts — and Metrolinx will ask qualified consortiums to bid on the massive $6.4-billion LRT contract this summer.

The contract includes constructing and maintaining the storage facility, building stations and track, and converting the Scarborough RT to light rail. A $300-million contract to tunnel the west end of the Crosstown has already been parceled out.

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Community activists in Weston-Mount Dennis want to make sure at least some of that money is used to create a job pipeline for residents, many of whom are unskilled. They’re working with Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario to ensure that a so-called “community benefits agreement” becomes one of the bid requirements.

And they’re encouraging other at-risk neighbourhoods intersected by the LRT to do the same.

“Our emphasis on getting jobs could, in fact, begin to change the thinking of people in other communities along the line,” said Marabelle McTavish, a retired school teacher and chair of the Mount Dennis Community Association.

Job numbers in the riding of York South-Weston were in free fall long before the demise of Kodak as companies such as CCM, Moffat Stoves and Massey-Harris packed up and left the neighbourhood.

But the film manufacturer, which had been there since the First World War, was especially revered by generations of former employees, who felt the company treated them like family.

Workers had their own recreation building with a darkroom, gym and auditorium. Employees met and married at Kodak and their children found employment there.

“I am told by those who grew up in the Mount Dennis and Weston areas of Toronto, that they looked up to Kodak as the place to work,” said Ken Shaddock, who worked for the company from 1967 to 2001.

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“Employees spoke of the place highly so the word spread, such that Kodak Heights would become a planned destination for thousands. When they got in the door, they stayed.”

Now, almost 40 per cent of children in the constituency live in poverty, as do about 30 per cent of families.

Residents who remember better times look to the vacant site, one of the last industrial tracts in the area, as a kind of promised land.

“I think we need to change the way we go about building and developing our communities so that in fact we do take care of those people,” said McTavish.

Metrolinx officials say they agree.

“That’s ultimately what we’ve got to do,” said spokesman Jamie Robinson. “Metrolinx is committed to ensuring that as many people as possible are hired locally.”

The process could include educating the public about jobs that will be available so they can get the training themselves, or developing apprenticeship programs with local colleges, he said.

But some critics doubt the transit agency will do enough to help at-risk communities.

“Metrolinx hasn’t been particularly friendly with creating jobs with their facilities, but we’re going to keep putting pressure on them,” said Mike Sullivan, MP for York South-Weston. “Because when you’re spending as much money as you are on a facility like this, you should be creating work for the people who live in the area.”

The idea of at-risk communities benefiting directly from major infrastructure projects is rare, but it isn’t new.

The city has used similar contracts in neighbourhoods such as Regent Park, where 570 jobs have been created for residents in construction or local retail in what is to date a $630-million social housing and community redevelopment.

Many of those hired were unskilled. The city partnered with George Brown College to offer pre-apprenticeship training for some building trades.

Toronto calls the contracts “social procurement” and staff are writing a report for the city’s executive committee to provide a framework for future agreements.

“Even though the city has done this a number of times, each case has been highly customized so we don’t have a systemic approach to it,” said Denise Campbell, the city’s director of community resources.

Metrolinx is in charge of $8.4 billion worth of LRT projects in Toronto including lines on Eglinton Ave., Finch Ave. W. and Sheppard Ave. E.

The agency is also building an expanded GO rail line to Kitchener for $1.2 billion and the Union-Pearson rail express at a cost of $456 million.

So far, Metrolinx has created one pilot project and that was for the GO rail line to Kitchener, which is called the Georgetown South Project. Like the LRT, it cuts through Weston-Mount Dennis.

Metrolinx offered $50,000 to put 10 at-risk youth through a local pre-apprenticeship program called Hammer Heads, run by the Central Ontario Building Trades.

But the training has yet to take place.

Robinson said the agency agrees the Georgetown pilot project wasn’t good enough.

Metrolinx has formed a community benefits working group with Infrastructure Ontario, the United Way, local labour organizations and labour education groups. The group is meeting with local organizations to decide what kind of community benefits should be used to evaluate consortiums that bid on the project.

“We’ve got to ramp it up,” said Robinson. “The community wants more than that. And that’s why we’ve got to work to ensure that we can do better than that.”

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